The reason I had been resisting writing this was because you asked to write an email when I brought up my issues in this relationship. “I don’t have time to talk about your issues. Perhaps I can contemplate better if you write”. Subtext, “I cannot help but get pissed off when you talk. Perhaps when I read and not hear you I will be able to keep my emotions in check”. I was so resistant and aghast at this formality, that I resisted writing about what was going through my mind for the longest time. I’m writing today because I feel writing about this would be therapeutic for me. And right now I’m at my wits end, desperate for anything to work. I’ve tried movies, work, smoking, drinking, and friends. And it’s not working out. It’s funny how a relationship that began with Yahoo Messenger ended over an Email.

So much has happened over the past 2 years, so many changes that it is difficult to gauge where to begin from. I don’t have too complex ideas about how relationships are supposed to be like. For me a healthy relationship must have respect for each other. If I cannot respect my partner or if my partner cannot respect me, then I’m out. The problem is, that as easy as this rule is to understand it is most difficult to assess in the moment, what is respect and what is not. That is what being ‘in’ a relationship does. You have too much too lose by one wrong perception, one wrong step. That you’d rather not perceive than misperceive sometimes. So you’re a very different version of yourself than who you thought you’d be or who you thought you are. Primarily, human beings are ready to salvage respect at the alter of pleasure. The pleasure of company, sex, companionship, or in some cases the tag of a relationship or marriage. Until you lose complete sense of respect for your own self.

It is important for me to write uncensored what I’m going through today 26th of November 2017, for this to work. I’m on stage 2 of grief these days: anger. This is right after denial and right before bargaining. For me anger has always turned inwards. I don’t feel homicidal in my anger, I feel suicidal. I feel that killing myself will be a good option to get rid of this pain. Not a novel thought for sure, but a very strong impulse. Having the insight that it is an impulse does not reduce the intensity of the pain; it just prevents me from taking steps that even I regret when I come out of the whirlpool from time to time to grasp for air. I try and remember when did I last feel like this and I remembered, in this relationship itself. The fights were so hurtful, so painful that so many times I felt like hurting myself. I wonder if there is a part of me that wants to hurt my perpetrators by hurting myself, and the answer is yes. Of course there is. I’ve never been the kind where I would have wanted to hurt others, hurting myself is the easier way out: maybe a womanly thing to do? Or perhaps better still something to do with feeling victimized? I try to go back a few more years, when did I feel like this? I felt like this at being trapped in hands of a maniacal narcissistic parent as a young child. Self-blame, pain, guilt, abuse, feeling unwanted, guilt, with no ways to cope with these intense feelings only a strong need to escape. And escape I did with you, only to land back here. I still cannot help but see the silver lining. Perhaps God saved me from a life-long suffering with you. If I look back, can I blame myself? Yes, it does take two to tango. We were not perfect. Never intended to be. As I always I was a satisfier, to have a stable person in my life was a huge sense of security. I’m not speaking of a security men think women look for. God knows, financial security or security about my looks, security about being independent I have in plenty. It was a security of a deeper level. It was the security the 4-year-old who was hurt, afraid, angry, and distrustful of the world. I needed to know that there are people (men) to rely on who will try their best to not be hurtful. There was a song that I dedicated to you, ‘If I were a boy, I couldn’t be better than you’. I knew at the time, that it was an ideal expectation than what was true nature of things. It was this infantile sense of security every human being needs that you brought to my life. I cannot help feel angry that you snapped it away. Well, better late than later I’d say. You always had the power over me to destroy me. As does every person a human being falls in love with. Well, congratulations. You have effectively broken a part that that I was slowly trying to build and heal over the few years. I know, I’m broken for now, and it is a new beginning, the beginning I once saw at 18 years of age is another beginning at 28. While there is great temptation for me to think that it is a beginning all over again. But it’s not. I know I’m not back on square one. I’m just on a different square: an unfamiliar one. My risk-averse comfort zone side is not the happiest being here. I don’t like it, but I don’t have an option. You’re not an option anymore. You’re the past. And even though I would like nothing better than a flyover to bypass this pain, I know it’s not how things work. I am stuck in a painful traffic jam, where leaving my car and running away is not an option. It’s what I would have done as a child, but as a mature woman I have to sit here and wait for the freedom I most desire right now: freedom from you and your memories.

Come and say hi!

Letter To My Ex is run by journalist and blogger Rachel Smith. Write a letter of your own, read thousands of letters from all over the world or check out the latest on the blog, where we touch on everything to do with break-ups, exes, single life, dating and relationships in general.
If you'd like to get in touch, you can email us here, or via post to LTME HQ, PO Box 464 Newtown NSW 2042.